Who has not had the need to urgently seek a health service and not find it, regardless of whether the case occurs on a highway, in a shopping center or in any other imaginable place?
Anyone who has experienced it knows how complex this situation becomes, even more so when the person has health problems.
The center of Medellín does not escape the shortage of public toilets. Virtually the only ones available are located in shopping malls and other private sites. For the ordinary citizen, who does not get there, there are only two options: the EPM library or the battery of bathrooms located on one side of the Villanueva shopping center.
Without being aesthetically the most beautiful, until a couple of years ago the Mayor’s Office of Medellín hired the location of bathroom batteries in different places in the center. The blue booths visible throughout the center provided daytime service to whoever needed it, as an option for the most needy people, including homeless people.
Since they were withdrawn, sanitation conditions have dramatically deteriorated and one of the biggest citizen complaints is the bad smell on every block and in every corner of the city center. No green area is spared, especially those in parks and road separators, nor are sidewalks and commercial premises. All of them, almost without exception, have suffered in recent months from bad odors generated by the physiological needs that hundreds of people do every day throughout our territory.
One year ago (on February 7, 2022) at the Government Council held by the Medellín mayor’s office, the manager of the Center at that time, Mónica Pabón, announced that together with the merchants of commune 10, they were studying a proposal to address one of the most complex problems in the area: public toilets. The idea was to implement concessions with private parties so that they would enable bathrooms in different sectors according to needs.
The idea did not materialize and the management that was in the hands of the APP agency has not yet taken off, nor have the blue portable batteries that provided so much service to the community been installed again.
Now that Mayor Daniel Quintero and his entire cabinet are looking at Plaza Botero, it would be worth it to extend it to other parks and squares in the center, not only to provide security, but also better health conditions for residents and tourists.
So public toilets are an emergency that cannot wait and that requires action as soon as possible so that commune 10 can breathe other airs.
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